Monday, September 15, 2008

Sunday evenings...

Like most American families, we are busy, busy, busy. Coupled with all the extracurricular activities we always seem to find ourselves involved in, our daddy works every other weekend. This has the effect of really cutting short our time together as a family. He gets home most evenings around 6:30, and by the time we've had dinner and a bath, there is very little time to play as a family during the week. (I'm one of those mommies that likes the 8:00 bedtime. I NEED my evening to get myself ready for the next day.)

So, we decided that for our family, we would opt out of the Sunday night activities our church provides. We feel very little guilt since we are both involved in a combined total of 9 other group activities our church offers in addition to corporate worship. Somce of these are service oriented, some are fellowship focused, and others are merely for instruction. But the point is, as we grow in parenthood and in our marriage we realized that we could actually end up short-changing our kids and each other in our endeavor to be a part of our church body. Sounds contradictory, I know, but still possible. I can serve on every committee, take every new mom a meal, but if my own kids are struggling I am failing in my primary calling. Only if our house is in order are we really equipped to go out and serve.

Our house wasn't out of order, but we felt we could have been headed that way. All I'm trying to say is, "charity" starts at home. So, since Sunday night is the one night we know we will always be home, we decided to safeguard it. Last night we invited another family to join us for some good food at a restaurant that has a great outdoor pavilion where the kids could run around realtively safely and the adults could converse. Gotta love places like that! After dinner, we all headed to a snowcone stand and indulged in one of our favorite summer past times.

Emory only almost died three times, but her life was saved by her buddy Parker who caught her by the sleeve as she tried to run into the restaurant's kitchen. He held on tight until I could get there to relieve him. I snatched her before she actually made it to the street while we were heading to the terrific, contained pavilion. It really is a great place to eat, you just have to walk out into the great wide open to get there. And, later as we were enjoying the shaved ice, she thought playing in a busy highway sounded like grand fun. Mr. Scott's terrific ninja skills saved the day, and our little girl is still with us.

It was a wonderful evening. The weather was good, the food was good, the company was good. Mommy is thankful for a meal she didn't prepare and even got to rest a bit as the kids entertained themselves and each other. And it's so much fun to laugh with yor friends and to watch your children enjoy the same pleasure.

On another note... our camera died several months ago, but we've finally decided on another one to purchase. Soon I hope to have more pictures of what we are up to these days. This girl is hangin' from the rafters and keeping us in stitches with her antics.

Just for Aimee

the parents

Meet the parents:

the Daddy: won my heart nearly 7 years ago, which was no small feat. awesome guitar and mandolin player, which aided in said wooing of heart. veternarian extraordinaire. super cool daddy. best guy i know.

the Mommy: delightfully becoming the mother i always mocked, one diaper change at a time. gave birth 3 times in 4 years. domestic engineer. loves to sweat. hates to be barefoot. caffeine junkie. welcome to my inner thoughts. proceed with caution.